Controlling printing copies of a printable content

Abstract

Provided are an image forming apparatus and a method of controlling collated printing in an image forming apparatus. For example, the image forming apparatus comprises an image former, a communicator to receive a print request from a host device; a controller to convert at least one portion of the data received from the host device into print data corresponding to one copy of the printable content by the image former, in response to the print request; and a memory to store the print data. The controller is to, in response to determining that the memory stores the print data, control the image former to print the plurality of copies of the printable content.

1 . An image forming apparatus comprising:
 an image former;   a communicator to receive a print request to print a plurality of copies of a printable content comprising at least one page and data corresponding to the plurality of copies of the printable content from a host device;   a controller to convert at least one portion of the data received from the host device into print data corresponding to one copy of the printable content to be printable by the image former, in response to the print request; and   a memory to store the print data corresponding to the one copy of the printable content,   wherein, the controller is to, in response to determining that the memory stores the print data corresponding to the one copy of the printable content, control the image former to print the plurality of copies of the printable content using the print data corresponding to the one copy of the printable content.   
     
     
         2 . The image forming apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein, for the determining that the memory stores the print data corresponding to the one copy of the printable content, the controller is to determine whether the memory stores the print data corresponding to the one copy of the printable content. 
     
     
         3 . The image forming apparatus of  claim 2 , wherein the memory is a volatile memory from which the stored print data is lost when a supply of power to the image forming apparatus is stopped. 
     
     
         4 . The image forming apparatus of  claim 2 , wherein, in response to the determining that the memory stores the print data corresponding to the one copy of the printable content, the controller is to control the communicator to stop receiving the data from the host device. 
     
     
         5 . The image forming apparatus of  claim 2 , wherein, in response to the determining that the memory stores the print data corresponding to the one copy of the printable content, the controller is to delete an unconverted portion of the data received from the host device. 
     
     
         6 . The image forming apparatus of  claim 2 , wherein, in response to the determining that the memory stores the print data corresponding to the one copy of the printable content, the controller is to stop converting an unconverted portion of the data received from the host device. 
     
     
         7 . The image forming apparatus of  claim 2 , wherein, in response to the determining that the memory stores the print data corresponding to the one copy of the printable content, the controller is to delete stored print data stored in the memory other than the print data corresponding to the one copy of the printable content. 
     
     
         8 . The image forming apparatus of  claim 2 , wherein, in response to the determining that the memory stores the print data corresponding to the one copy of the printable content, the controller is to provide at least one finishing option via a user interface for selecting a finishing option among the at least one finishing option. 
     
     
         9 . The image forming apparatus of  claim 8 , wherein, after the one copy of the printable content is printed to be a copy of a printed content, the printer is to apply the finishing option selected through the user interface to the copy of the printed content and output the copy of the printed content to which the finishing option is applied. 
     
     
         10 . The image forming apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein, when the memory is unable to store the print data corresponding to the one copy of the printable content due to a shortage of storage space of the memory, the controller is to convert all of the data corresponding to the plurality of copies of the printable content received from the host device into print data in the printable format. 
     
     
         11 . The image forming apparatus of  claim 10 , wherein, when the memory is unable to store the print data corresponding to the one copy of the printable content, the controller is to delete the print data stored in the memory. 
     
     
         12 . The image forming apparatus of  claim 2 , wherein the controller is to, while converting the at least one portion of the data received from the host device into the print data corresponding to the one copy of the printable content to be printable by the image former,
 control the image former to print the one copy of the printable content by using the print data corresponding to the one copy of the printable content being converted, and   check whether the memory is capable of storing the print data corresponding to the one copy of the printable content.   
     
     
         13 . The image forming apparatus of  claim 1 , wherein the controller is to obtain size information of the print data corresponding to the one copy of the printed content from the host device, and determine that the print data corresponding to the one copy of the printed content is to be stored in the memory, based on the size information of the print data corresponding to the one copy of the printed matter. 
     
     
         14 . A method of controlling collated printing in an image forming apparatus, the method comprising:
 receiving a print request to print a plurality of copies of printable content comprising at least one page and data corresponding to the plurality of copies of the printable content from a host device;   converting at least one portion of the data received from the host device into print data corresponding to one copy of the printable content to be printable by a image former of the image forming apparatus, in response to the print request;   storing the print data corresponding to the one copy of the printable content in a memory; and   in response to determining that the memory stores the print data corresponding to the one copy of the printable content, controlling the image former to print the plurality of copies of the printable content using the print data corresponding to the one copy of the printable content.   
     
     
         15 . A non-transitory computer-readable recording medium having recorded thereon a computer-executable program for executing the method of  claim 14 .